When he came down from the mountain, he found Stride busy in his laboratory. Stride possessed a magnificent Zeiss microscope and all the accessories—incubating ovens, sterilising apparatus, stains, and reagents—for the highest bacteriological work. Of late, Mark had given the little man some help in staining and mounting preparations.
"We are out of one world," Stride had said, "but I will introduce you to another through an apochromatic lens. You will find yourself quite at home, my friend. Here, in this drop of water, you will note the same struggle for existence, the same old game as it is played in Whitechapel or Whitehall."
When Mark began to understand something of the technique of the microscope, when Stride had shown him its uses, for instance, in the analysis of diseased tissue or blood, and revealed its magical powers of diagnosis, Mark asked a question: "How can any doctor work without one?" Stride laughed at such innocence.
"It takes up too much time. No hard-working practitioner ignores the value of it, but he cannot use it. When necessary, he sends preparations to some specialist. A microscope exacts more attention than a wife. That is why I"—he slapped his chest and winked furiously—"have remained single."
This devotion to his work strengthened the chain which linked patient to doctor. Stride—Mark felt assured—might have secured fame and fortune in London. Yet he chose to remain unknown and poor in Sutherland.
Mark told him that he had climbed Ben Caryll, and felt none the worse for it. Stride shook his big head.
"You oughtn’t to attempt such walks—yet."
"Then the time is coming. I shall regain my health?"
He had never put the question so directly before. Stride eyed him attentively, hearing a new note in his voice.
"It would be refused—peremptorily," said Stride. "Why, man, you’d douse the glim which I’ve been coaxing into flame all these weeks. What magnet draws you from Crask? A woman?"
"Oh, these tempestuous petticoats! Now, Samphire, I’m not a fool, and I guessed, when you came here, that you left a girl behind you. You are not engaged to her?"
"Good! Now, listen to wisdom. If everything goes well with you—if fresh air and simple food and freedom from worry make you whole, you may marry some day—but you’ll have to wait a long time, so as to make sure, and even then, after years of comparative health, you may break down again. Will this young lady wait for you—indefinitely?"